


When This Whole Thing Began

by SegaBarrett



Category: Jesus Christ Superstar - All Media Types
Genre: 2000 Movie, M/M, Pre-Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1353667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Judas and Jesus first became acquainted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When This Whole Thing Began

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own JCS and I make no money from this. This story makes no claim on the real lives or personalities of the real Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot. This is based on the 2000 Movie.
> 
> A/N: I hope you like this!! :)

Judas Iscariot sat back down on the rock wall behind him, hooking a leg under himself as he absentmindedly fumbled for a cigarette with his hand. 

“So, have you heard about this dude who just rolled into town? Some kind of miracle worker, they say,” his co-worker relayed.

Judas snorted.

“Miracle worker? Maybe he can miraculously get me a reasonable lunch break. I barely got back from lunch in time, and I didn’t need the boss to eat me alive. Keeps telling me bag clerks are a dime a dozen, they could hire anyone off the street if I give ‘er too much lip.”

“You know what I think, Judas?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” Judas pulled out his lighter and lit the cigarette, moving it to his lips.

“I think you’re fed up with this job.”

“No, I’m just bursting at the seams with excitement. What are you talking about?”

***

“I don’t ever get anything for this card! I hope you know that. I hope you know that I’ve been wasting my time carrying around this card. And that was less on the tag, and so was this… I hope you know that I’m going to complain.”

“You already are.” Judas’ voice came out of his mouth before he could think better of the statement.

“Excuse me! I’ll go to your boss. I’ll have you fired. I’ll have you out on the street.” She curled her nose, and he looked her straight in the eye. Stuck-up Roman scum.

They thought they owned the world, and as things looked right about now, they might as well have. He knew that it was true – she could complain to the boss, have him fired, have him out on the street with nothing.

On this day, however, Judas realized he just didn’t care.

***

Judas had to listen to a litany of reasons from his boss about how, as much as she’d love to (“You’re great with money,” she pointed out, “Your register hasn’t ever been short.”), she just couldn’t employ him anymore. The woman he’d had it out with, apparently, was the wife of one of the high-ranking Roman centurions, and if she didn’t fire Judas, well, the whole business could get shut down.

She cut him his last check and sent him on his way.

There was the rent, there were the utilities, all because of his big mouth. It wasn’t the first time that it had gotten Judas in trouble, and he was quite sure that it was not going to be the last. That didn’t change much, however. He needed to get a job soon.

He sat himself down on the curb and thought. Although he was trying to focus on employment – the quicker and richer the better, though he had vowed to never sell knives door-to-door again – he found himself thinking of the miracle worker they had all been talking about. He didn’t know _why_.

Maybe he needed to go find him, hear in person what the man had to say. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do right about now, after all. Maybe he’d run into someone who had a job open. What was that word his professor had used in the only semester of college he’d bothered to turn up at? Yes, that was it – networking. 

Maybe he would use the fact that this guy seemed to have something to say that people wanted to hear as an excuse to network. 

***

It didn’t take him long to find out, by way of a few flyers on telephones poles as well as some excited murmurings, that the man was still in town, and would in fact be giving a speech at the local coffee shop. That did seem a bit pretentious to Judas – all sorts of weirdos gave speeches there – but it seemed to be as good a venue as any considering that Kerioth wasn’t all that large of a town. There was a coffeeshop, a Pathmark, a few synagogues, and a few more bars. That was about it.

There weren’t many people in the coffeeshop when he got there. In front was a guy in his twenties with green hair, next to him was an Asian girl who looked as if she had just woken up, and hanging out in the back was a redheaded man who smelled distinctly of marijuana.

Judas took his spot off to the side, wondering if he should go up and spend part of his last paycheck on a frozen coffee. Maybe it would make the waiting bearable. Or maybe he’d get a muffin – being downwind of the pothead was making him hungry.

He was quickly through with thoughts of the pothead, however, because someone was approaching the podium.

Judas quickly recognized him as the man everyone was talking about. He definitely stood out, what with his long blonde hair and broad shoulders. He was wearing a sort of tank top and cargo pants, and he had a striking… sense about him.

Judas leaned on the pillar beside him curiously. He didn’t know exactly what this was going to end up being, but it was probably going to end up being interesting. 

And at least it would distract him from his eventual hunger for a little while. 

The man opened his mouth and began to speak – something about how the meek shall inherit the Earth as well as calling out a lot of the local (well, not all that local, they were up in big-city Jerusalem instead of tiny Kerioth) religious leaders who ran everything and never seemed to give all that much back to the people.  
Judas hadn’t ever really thought much about it before. Of course there were the Romans, who ruled over the entire province, but the religious leaders definitely got their share out of it too. As far as he was concerned, if they weren’t going to do anything about the Romans, then they were just as bad.

This man, however… He was something else. He wasn’t exactly advocating killing all the Romans and kicking them out on their asses – he’d seen that speech before, hell, he’d cheered that speech before, but he had realized later that right now it wasn’t much of an option against the biggest army in the world. 

This seemed like an answer. Or maybe Judas just couldn’t stop looking into those blue eyes.

He’d always been a man who’d held his heart over his head, and as long as he could remember, it had always gotten him in trouble. He’d gotten himself kicked out of his house when he was fifteen after sucker-punching his mother’s boyfriend, and ever since then he’d floated from one crappy Roman-subsidized and controlled job to another. He barely saw the people that he’d once cared about, the people he’d once worked for. The friend from school who had taken him in for a few years… Judas realized he didn’t even know what the guy was doing these days. Last he’d heard the guy had a drinking problem and was helping run a dice game down at the temple.

The man wasn’t like most of the other people Judas had seen speak in these kind of… well, he couldn’t call it a seminar exactly, but he couldn’t find a better word for it either. He didn’t wait until the end, ask for any questions and then argue with the people who asked them. Instead, he simply left, as if his words spoke for themselves.

And they did. Judas saw a few people rise from their seats and head for him as he left the coffeehouse, looking like moths to the flame.

Judas didn’t know what to think.

***

Judas sat at a table outside of some restaurant that he’d been to one or twice before, one of those places that served overpriced pasta and coffee that cost four times what it would be if he just got it out of the tap at the convenience store. 

He wasn’t planning to order anything from inside. He just needed a place to sit, maybe take out his phone and search for some places that were hiring. If they came out and said he needed to buy something, he would get one of those overpriced coffees.

For right now, however, he’d decided to conserve both his energy and his finances. His energy had certainly been dwindling recently, that was for sure. He leaned forward and slid his phone further into his pocket so no one could come by and take it. Maybe he’d just rest his head for a moment or two. That would be okay, wouldn’t it? Just a moment or two.

He let out a big sigh as he laid his head on the hard metal of the table. It was chilly against his skin. He closed his eyes.

“Hello.”

Judas leapt up, opening his eyes and staring at the man who was standing in front of him.

“Shit!” he cursed, falling out of his chair.

The man looked down and smiled, before extending his hand.

“Hello,” the man repeated again, and as Judas clumsily took his hand and rose to his feet, he recognized him – long blonde hair, blue eyes, a sort of look-right-through-you kind of gaze – it was Jesus, the man from the coffee shop and the guy everybody was talking about.

Why in the hell was he talking to Judas, though?

“Uh…hey?” Judas murmured, shifting in his spot and finding himself trying to make himself a little more presentable. Again, he didn’t know exactly why, but something in this man’s nature seemed to inspire it. “You’re that guy, right. That…” He nearly slurred despite being sober. “You’re that Jesus guy.”

“That is who I am,” the man replied with a smile. He extended his hand. “Hello, Judas.”

Judas blinked. 

“How do you know my name?”

The man didn’t answer, instead simply looking him over in a manner that was not judgmental so much as exploratory; there was a strange sense of curiosity about it.

“You knew mine,” Jesus replied with a smile, not putting his hand back. Judas shook it as if in a kind of dream. He could not stop staring at him, and he was sure that his mouth must be hanging open and that he must be looking like the world’s biggest idiot.

“Yeah,” Judas told him. “But I saw… Uh, I saw your thing. Your… speech or whatever. That’s how I know who you are.” He pulled his hands away and slipped them into the pockets of his leather jacket, like he needed to give them something to do, some kind of purpose. “Why do you care who I am?”

“Let’s walk, Judas.”

Somehow, Judas found himself rising, as much as he didn’t understand it.

“Walk where?” he asked suspiciously, finding himself both attracted and repelled by the man’s charm; like a magnet flying back and forth, unable to tell where it wants to go. 

“Just walk,” Jesus said. His voice was an even lilt, like the answer both didn’t matter at all and mattered more than anything ever occurring on the Earth. 

“I need to get back to…” Judas began, but he knew there was nothing to get back to. There was nothing here in Kerioth for him, not that there ever had been. If he followed this man off a cliff or into a deserted forest to get shot, it wasn’t as if anyone was going to come looking for him. 

And so he walked down the street, and as they walked, they talked. He found that Jesus seemed to have an easy way of saying everything while still saying nothing at all. He didn’t speak much, yet every word seemed to carry with it a multitude of meanings, of connotations. 

Conversely, Judas did most of the talking, finding himself seemingly unable to shut up, mouth hanging open and babbling.

“What brings you here? What do you think of this one-horse town? What’s your deal, anyway?” The question he did not speak but which hung in the air, anyway, was “Why me?”

For somehow Judas felt like he had won some kind of contest that he had been unaware that he had even entered. 

Jesus smiled.

“You have many questions, Judas. I come from Nazareth.”

Judas raised an eyebrow.

“Kinda a one-horse town itself, isn’t it?” he pointed out. “I mean… no offense.”

“A one colt town,” Jesus said. His blue eyes were teasing. Judas found his hands shaking a little bit. He smiled shyly.

“Two pony town,” he dared.

“Maybe a three mule and one goat town,” Jesus offered.

Judas grinned wider than he had in recent memory, and slowly looked up at the sky.

“It’s late,” he commented, pointing. “It’s dark.” The world was shrouded in a blue-black cloak. He slipped his hands back in his jacket pockets self-consciously. “You ought to get going, I guess.”

Jesus looked at him.

“I am leaving early tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?” Judas looked up into the stars, not meeting the man’s eyes.

“To Sebaste.”

“To Sebaste,” Judas repeated. “I’ve… been there. You might need someone to show you the way around. I mean, what do you know? Maybe word travels fast and everyone will want a piece of you. Autographs and stuff.” He chuckled at the thought. No way this little fad would travel any farther than it already had, right? “And maybe you’d need, like… an agent.”

“An agent.”

“Yeah. Every great personality needs an agent.”

“Perhaps a treasurer,” Jesus agreed.

“I’m good with money,” Judas offered.

Jesus raised an eyebrow.

“You’re hired.”

“Hired?”

“If you want the job, that is.”

“As your… treasurer?”

“Not just mine. I have a small group. We need to budget as we travel,” Jesus explained. “Travel across the country can require a great deal of sacrifice and forethought. Of course… If you didn’t want…”

“I do.” Judas’ words were out of his mouth before he even knew he was saying them. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. Think about it overnight. It wouldn’t be easy.”

Judas considered it only briefly. Hadn’t he just decided there was nothing for him here?

He looked up into the expanse of the night sky. Tomorrow, they’d be traveling together. This probably wouldn’t last long – the man would settle down sooner or later, and in the meantime, he’d need someone looking out for him. A right hand man. And maybe, in time, he would be more.


End file.
